The present invention is related to monitoring activities and more particularly monitoring activities of persons and equipment in a healthcare environment.
Caregivers such as nurses and other staff in a hospital ward, hospital wing, or other healthcare facility generally work under high pressure, high stress and long hours. These caregivers should be highly responsive to patient needs, in non-emergency as well as emergency situations. Due to ever-increasing costs of healthcare and other economic practicalities, efficient deployment of the caregivers in a healthcare facility is desired, particularly at night when the number of caregivers is typically maintained at a minimum. Nevertheless, optimizing efficiency is of secondary importance relative to the primary objective of providing a high level of healthcare.
One approach to maximizing the efficiency of caregivers such as nurses in a hospital facility involves the use of a location and identification system to continuously monitor the location of the caregivers. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,385 to White, which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a personnel locating system where individuals to be located wear transmitters, and each transmitter transmits a signal which corresponds to the identity of the wearer. This information is relayed to and displayed at a central control unit. The information may also be displayed at remote terminals, used to control access to equipment or locations, or conveyed via a telephone interface to a telephone switching network to call the nearest telephone or to page the wearer of the transmitter. Additionally, newer communications systems provide even more than the relatively simple locating and telephoning features disclosed in White. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,561,412 to Novak et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,038 to Ulrich et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,223 to Gallant et al., all of which are incorporated herein by reference, disclose the use of communications systems that integrate several aspects of personnel and equipment locating, call/code enunciation, and equipment status information.
As alluded to above, caregiver (e.g., nurse) to patient ratios continue to decline due to increasing economic pressures. Many healthcare facilities are exploring ways to reduce the non-value added activities of the caregivers to maintain quality care while reducing the number of caregivers per patient. Computers hold promise for aiding the caregivers to work more efficiently by eliminating activities previously performed by caregivers and/or reducing the amount of time associated with the performance of caregiver activities. However, conventional uses of computers in the above locating and identification systems only supply the caregivers with information and at the most alarms indicating possible adverse events. Computer systems need to become aware of activities within the hospital environment if they are to reduce employee workload. To enable this evolution in computing technology, Activity Based Tracking (“ABT”) is needed. ABT is, in a general sense, the real-time connectivity of information (i.e., location, time, device activity, etc.) to detect the occurrence of a specific activity for which a known response is acted upon by an automated system.
Generally speaking an ABT system performs better if the ABT system includes a locating and detection system with a relatively high location resolution. In other words, the instances in which the ABT system provides value to the caregiver are increased if the ABT system is able to determine the location of caregivers, patients, equipment, etc. (hereinafter, “assets”) with high resolution. Current tracking/locating systems used in hospitals are based on IR/RF in which the location of the fixed receiver determines the location of the tagged object. Utilizing this strategy, to increase the locating resolution (e.g., to move from being able to determine which room a caregiver is in to being able to determine that the caregiver is next to a patient's bed), additional receivers with limited range may be employed.
In one exemplary embodiment a system for tracking a plurality of movable assets in a healthcare environment is provided comprising a plurality of badges and a locating system. Each of the plurality of badges including a transmitter, being adapted to be coupled to the asset, and being configured to transmit an identification signal identifying the badge. The locating system being configured to receive the identification signal from the respective badge and to determine a location of the asset in the healthcare environment including a height associated with the asset based at least in part on the identification signal. The locating system being further configured to determine if the height of the asset is an expected height.
In one exemplary method for monitoring an asset to determine if the asset has been dropped or has fallen, the method comprises the steps of providing a badge adapted to be coupled to the asset, the badge having an accelerometer configured to monitor a vertical acceleration of the asset and a transmitter; monitoring the vertical component of the acceleration of the badge; transmitting information regarding the vertical acceleration of the badge; determining if the vertical acceleration of the badge has exceeded a threshold value; and identifying the asset as having been dropped or as having fallen based on the vertical acceleration exceeding the threshold value.
In another exemplary embodiment, a system for tracking a plurality of movable assets in a healthcare facility is provided. The system comprising a plurality of badges, a locating system, and at least one portable device. Each of the plurality of badges including a transmitter, being adapted to be coupled to the asset, and being configured to transmit an identification signal identifying the badge. The plurality of badges including a first badge being associated with a first movable asset. The locating system being configured to receive the identification signal from the first badge and to determine a location of the first movable asset in the healthcare facility based at least in part on the identification signal received from the first badge. The at least one portable device including a controller, a display, a memory, an input device, and a transceiver. The portable device being configured to generate a request signal to be received by the locating system requesting the location of the first movable asset in the healthcare facility, to receive a location signal from the locating system indicating the location of the first movable asset, and to provide appropriate directions to a first location in the healthcare facility based on the location of the first movable asset.
In yet another exemplary embodiment, a system for tracking a plurality of movable assets in a healthcare facility is provided. The system comprises a plurality of badges, a locating system, and a virtual facility interface. Each of the plurality of badges including a transmitter, being adapted to be coupled to the asset, and being configured to transmit an identification signal identifying the badge. The plurality of badges including a first badge being associated with a first movable asset. The locating system configured to receive the identification signal from the first badge and to determine a location of the first movable asset in the healthcare facility based at least in part on the identification signal received from the first badge. The virtual facility interface including a display and an input device. The virtual facility interface presents a virtual facility including a map of the facility and representations of various assets each having a badge associated therewith, the representations being positioned within the virtual facility based on the location information determined by the locating system for each asset. At least the first asset including multiple representations including a first representation corresponding to a first status and a second representation corresponding to a second status.
In still a further exemplary embodiment, a system for tracking a plurality of movable assets in a healthcare environment is provided. The system comprising a plurality of badges and a locating system. Each of the plurality of badges including a transmitter and a displacement sensor, the badge being adapted to be coupled to the asset. The locating system including a plurality of transmitters positioned at fixed locations within the healthcare environment and a processor with an associated receiver. The processor configured to receive an identification signal from the respective badges. The plurality of transmitters configured to transmit identification signals identifying the transmitter. A first badge is configured to receive the transmitter identifying signals from the transmitters within range of the first badge, to transmit an identification signal to the processor of the locating system, the identification signal including identification information identifying the first badge and motion information collected by the first badge based on the displacement sensor. One of the processor and the first badge determines the location of the first badge based on the transmitter identifying signals received by the first badge.
In a further exemplary embodiment, a locating system is provided wherein the location of a user is determined based in part on the position of the user within the field of view of a camera and the focal length of the camera when the user is in focus. In a still further exemplary embodiment, a locating system is provided wherein a plurality of badges are detected by one or more steerable transceivers which generate an excitation signal of limited extent, the badges being configured to respond to the excitation signal.
Additional features and advantages of the present invention will be evident from the following description of the drawings and exemplary embodiments.